


shoot an apple off my head

by herax



Series: Bracca AU [3]
Category: Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Extremely Dubious Consent, Flashbacks, Forced Prostitution, Gen, Hurt Cal Kestis, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:15:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23055325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herax/pseuds/herax
Summary: While Cal is exploring the tomb of Miktrull, the Second Sister reveals just how much she’s learned about his past.
Relationships: Cal Kestis & Trilla Suduri | Second Sister
Series: Bracca AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942612
Comments: 5
Kudos: 87





	shoot an apple off my head

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely connected to [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23004790), although it’s definitely not necessary to read that one. Also I’m so sorry for spamming the tag for this fandom; I’m just replaying the game and having a lot of feelings.
> 
> Warning for references/flashbacks to some extremely dubious consent.

“I’m surprised,” Trilla says in his ear. “I expected more questions.”

Bracing his feet against the tangle of branches, Cal ignores the chill that runs through him as he pulls himself up. “About Cere? I don’t trust anything you say about her.”

Trilla laughs and Cal tries to tamp down the annoyance building in his chest. 

“About you,” she says, with feigned sweetness. “I know about Cordova, yes, but I know all about you too, Cal Kestis. About your past. About Jaro Tapal.”

Cal bristles at the sound of the name but concentrates on climbing as he says, “They kept records at the Jedi temple. Am I supposed to be impressed that someone who used to be a Padawan knows where to find them?”

“True,” Trilla hums. “The official details are easy to obtain. Jaro Tapal did well to hide you from us for so long. Such a pity his sacrifice was wasted on a cowardly scrap rat like you.”

“You know nothing about him,” Cal grits out as he hauls himself up over the ledge. 

He stops for breath, tilting his head to let BD-1 scout out a way forward, and he leaps to a sturdy vine as Trilla says coolly, “I don’t concern myself with the dead. I know plenty about you though, Padawan.” 

Cal doesn’t respond but Trilla continues regardless, “You were skilled when you were young, yes? But not accustomed to dealing with failure. That’s why Jaro Tapal took you on.” She laughs to herself. “At least he succeeded in that respect. You’re certainly well acquainted with failure now.”

Cal lands hard, dispatching a scazz with ease as he descends. 

“Like you’re in any position to talk,” he retorts. “I’ve escaped you and your troops, what, three times now? I didn’t know the Empire tolerated that much failure.”

“I have contingencies in place,” Trilla says.

Her voice is slightly more clipped that normal, irritation beginning to bleed through, and Cal grins to himself in victory. 

He takes the stairs two at a time, tapping into his freshly reawakened powers to pull the heavy door open and smiling when BD-1 offers a long trill in lieu of applause. He thinks for a moment that Trilla has gone but as he takes out a couple of errant stormtroopers, he hears her quiet breathing over the comm link.

“Your official history isn’t what interests me,” she says, and Cal frowns as he pulls a flickering lantern out of the wall. “At least, not in comparison to what I’ve heard about your time on Bracca.”

Cal freezes. The lantern crashes to the ground at his feet, the flame doused in the shallow water, and it takes a second for him to remember how to breathe, let alone how to connect with the force as dozens of memories crowd into his mind.

_”You’ll be good for me, won’t you, boy?”_

The triumph in Trilla’s voice is unmistakable when she taunts, “Clumsy, are we?”

Gritting his teeth, Cal retrieves a second lantern and launches it across the room with more aggression than necessary. “You found me on Bracca,” he points out. “You already knew I worked there.”

Trilla hums in agreement. “I did. But I’ve greatly enjoyed learning the details of what your duties entailed. Especially at your first scrapyard. Dalacond, wasn’t it?”

_”Welcome to Dalacond, kid.”_

_Another train speeds past, a couple of metres below Cal’s kicking feet, and he cries out, clutching desperately at the hand that’s fisted in the front of his tunic. He didn’t mean to cause trouble, didn’t want to take something that didn’t belong to him, but it’s been days since he landed on Bracca. Days since he buried his master. Days since he had any food._

_“Please,” he begs. The man holding him is huge and terrifying, his blue-green skin marked up with dark tattoos, and Cal does his best not to cry as the man dangles him over the tracks like he weighs nothing. “Please, I’m sorry!”_

_The man chuckles, revealing two rows of sharp teeth. “Let me show you what happens to thieves out here, kid. Even sorry ones.”_

Cal’s hand goes to his throat at the memory. The man had been interrupted before he could drop him, and had even met his own end on those same tracks two years later, but that didn’t stop Cal from waking in a cold sweat for weeks afterwards whenever he heard the rumble of a train.

He can still hear Trilla’s breathing in his ear and he shakes his head. “I worked at the Vichas scrapyard,” he says. “Did your inquisitor training not teach you how to read a map?”

Trilla’s laugh is one of sharp amusement. “Oh, is this your strategy? Pretend it never happened?” 

She pauses in brief contemplation but the words that follow are no less mocking. “Do you use the same strategy on yourself, I wonder? Lock all those memories away in a shameful little box and act like you were never there? Maybe that’s why you’ve latched on to a failure like Cere. You can pretend you’re picking up where you left off with your last master all those years ago. A brave little Padawan ready to fight for the cause.” 

There’s a sneer in her voice when she says, “As if any true Jedi would so much as look at you now.”

_Cal’s hands are shaking as he reaches for the washcloth._

_He tells himself it’s just the cold spray of the shower which is making his legs feel so unsteady beneath him, and focuses on cleaning the layer of sweat and grime off his skin. Blood washes off too, running from the deep, fresh cut along his collarbone, and Cal watches the rivulets of water turn a cloudy red as they run down over the bruises on his ribs and thighs._

_He keeps his eyes forward, tracing the cracks on the tiles as he slips the cloth between his legs, and he refuses to look at the thick mess swirling down the drain._

“Nothing to say?” Trilla prompts. “What happened to that smart mouth of yours?”

Blinking the memory away, Cal forces himself to start moving again. He reaches back to give BD-1 an absent pat on the head and tries to sound unaffected when he says, “My mouth’s right here. I’m just not that interested in making small-talk with murderers.”

Trilla sounds almost taken aback by his response when she says, amused, “Oh, now he has standards? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Admiral Vyrr did tell me you were a quiet one.”

BD-1 beeps in confusion and Cal sighs. “Am I meant to know who that is?”

Another laugh from Trilla, this time genuinely entertained. “Oh, the damage that will do to his ego. I can’t wait to tell him.”

“Hard to remember every Imperial scumbag I come across,” Cal says with a shrug.

“True,” Trilla agrees. “But a pity. Especially when he remembered so much about you. Provided a very _thorough_ account of your time together.”

Unease creeps through him as he tries to remember when he met an Imperial admiral and Trilla’s whisper is conspiratorial when she says, “Would you like me to give you a hint?” 

She continues anyway, sketching out a picture that slowly begins to take shape in Cal’s mind, “He’s human; light hair, dark eyes, and in better shape than many of the officers I’ve met. He has a scar running down the right side of his mouth, an ugly thing he got from a Jedi years ago. Can never stop touching the damn thing.”

_Cal can’t keep his eyes off the man’s tongue._

_It’s not forked or blue or anything else out of the ordinary, but as he moves in to refill the drinks for the overseer and his latest guest, he can’t help but watch the way the man’s tongue darts out to lick at the old scar crossing the corner of his mouth._

_If Overseer Lynd notices, he doesn’t comment on it, and Cal falls back into position by the wall as the men’s conversation turns from the Empire’s requirements in terms of scrapyard output to the officer’s requirements in terms of his evening’s entertainment._

Cal forces the memory back down, feeling nausea rise up at the thought of it, and he tries to sound as relaxed as he can when he lies, “Sorry, not ringing any bells.”

“Such a pity,” Trilla says with exaggerated sadness. “Perhaps I’ll let you two get reacquainted once I bring you in. Although with your psychometric abilities, I doubt Vyrr would even need to be present. All you need is something to touch and I’m sure the memories will come flooding back.” 

He swears he can hear the cruel smile on her lips as she says, “I believe he still carries that same stun baton…”

_Cal slumps against the headboard the second the baton stops touching his skin._

_He hears the admiral chuckle behind him as he moves to retrieve his clothes from across the room but Cal focuses on catching his breath instead of offering a response._

_(After all, the man hasn’t wanted anything but screams from him all evening; Cal wouldn’t want to disappoint him now.)_

_“I guess for once Lynd wasn’t overselling the merchandise,” the man says, fastening his pants back up. “God, that was worth every last credit.”_

_Still cuffed to the headboard, Cal curls in on himself silently. The usual pain is still there, his jaw and ass aching from thorough use, but it’s dwarfed by the lingering sting where the admiral pressed his baton against Cal’s neck and chest and thighs and watched him thrash and sob as the electricity tore through him._

_He knows the starburst burns should heal fast, although Lynd’s likely to dock him a meal or three for allowing himself to be marked this badly, but he hates that he can’t seem to get enough air into his lungs as he watches the admiral finish dressing, whistling to himself the whole time._

_He looks back at Cal as he tugs his coat on, tongue slipping out to touch his scar again, and a smile spreads across his face when he inspects the well-used baton. “How about one more for the road, hmm?”_

_Cal’s heart pounds as he approaches, but he doesn’t know whether it’s training or just sheer exhaustion which holds him still when the admiral reaches out with that cursed baton one final time._

_Its metal prongs touch the sole of Cal’s bare foot and then the world goes white again._

When Cal comes back to himself, he finds that he’s no longer standing. He isn’t sure when he sat down, or when Trilla’s voice just became a wordless whisper in his ears, but he welcomes the cool press of stone against his back as he takes in a lungful of air. 

He shoves the memories back down, coaxing his mind along a familiar calming path — he isn’t there anymore; Prauf got him out of Dalacond; Greez and Cere got him away from Bracca; he’s safe now; he’s safe — and by the time he opens his eyes again, he only catches the very end of Trilla’s question.

“-than that, Padawan?”

Beside him, BD-1 beeps anxiously and Cal reaches out a hand to reassure him as he takes another deep breath.

Glad to have someone in his corner, he gives BD-1 another pat before summoning up what remaining strength he has and asking, “Why the hell are you doing this, Trilla? What’s in this for you?”

His voice is a wreck and he berates himself for his audible weakness as Trilla laughs again.

There’s something new in her tone this time though, something Cal’s too disoriented to place, and he drags himself back to his feet, letting BD-1 scamper back up onto his back as she says, “Think of it as exploring possible uses for you. Just in case I get bored while breaking you in.”

Familiar anger fills him and Cal embraces it gladly. 

“Fuck you,” he retorts, and smiles at Trilla’s surprised intake of breath. “Fuck you and your whole pathetic Empire. You want to break me, Trilla? You’re going to have to do a hell of a lot better than that.”

For a long moment, all Cal hears is the sound of his heart pounding in his ears and the rush of water cascading down from the ceiling. 

When Trilla eventually speaks again, there’s far less mockery in her tone than he expected. 

“I do enjoy a challenge.” Nevertheless, he can still hear her smiling when she says, “I’ll see you soon, Padawan.”

With that, the comm link finally goes silent. 

Feeling like he’s just gone four rounds with a jotaz, Cal leans against the wall with a sigh. BD-1 trills behind him, making his best attempt at comfort, and in spite of himself, Cal smiles a little at the effort.

“I know,” he says, glancing back at the droid. “I’m sorry, BD. How about we get into that tomb now, huh?”

BD-1 beeps in agreement and Cal scrubs a hand over his face before looking up to reassess the puzzle in front of them. 

He tries very hard not to think about how Trilla’s parting words sounded more like a promise than a threat.


End file.
